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Reproducing the nation: `banal nationalism' in the Turkish press
Abstract
Nationalism is an elusive concept, resisting all attempts at formulating an allembracing definition. Despite this Janus-faced character, however, the literature on nationalism abounds with definitions and theories designed to explain its rise. In a groundbreaking study, Michael Billig (1995) challenges the orthodox conceptions of nationalism and introduces the term `banal nationalism' to cover all those unnoticed, routine practices and ideological habits which enable the daily reproduction of nationhood. The newspapers play a major role in this `unmindful' process of reproduction. This article is inspired by Billig's day survey of British newspapers. Replicating Billig's analysis in the Turkish context, the article examines 38 newspapers on a randomly selected day. In the course of the survey, the presentation and content of the news are analysed and the articles of the columnists and the advertisements are dissected. The results of the survey do not deviate from Billig's findings in the British case: the Turkish newspapers constantly `flag' nationhood. The fundamental premises of nationalist ideology are taken for granted and all debates are conducted within the parameters of the nationalist discourse. The article concludes by raising the following question: is there an alternative to this state of affairs?
... Although there are already similar research studies on the subject which all focus primarily on the relationship between media and identity (such as "Banal nationalism in the Turkish press" (Yumul and Özkirimli, 2000), "Banal Europeanism" (Cram, 2001;, and "Banal Europeanism and Americanism in English and Bulgarian media" (Slavtcheva-Petkova, 2014)), so far a similar examination about banal nationalism in post-Yugoslav media and through the lens of regional identity seems to be missing. Since all the researched countries in this paper were once part of the same federation, have shared the same history, have similar languages, and have interconnected cultures, this paper aims to test whether regional identity is still featured in state media, and if so, to what extent. ...
... A further mode depends on the use of deixes, such as "we", "us", "here" etc. This presents a sort of mutual recognition between the readers and gives them the imaginary feeling of a national homeland (Billig, 1995;Yumul and Özkirimli, 2000). ...
... The second indicator, "Neighbouring countries", will show us if and in what measure these countries are connected with their neighbours, especially if some of the country's ethnic minorities form a majority in the neighbouring state(s) or if both states share cultural and historical relations. Language is also a common denominator of banal nationalism, because writing in one language can imaginarily connect a community of people belonging to the same language and nation (Billig, 1995;Yumul and Özkirimli, 2000). In this research, the focus was also on European themes or the so-called "banal Europeanism", so the indicator "EU" will show us if any of the portals have a special rubric dedicated to topics from the European Union. ...
With the collapse of Yugoslavia, the supranational Yugoslav identity disappeared and was replaced by strengthened national identities. While some states of the former Yugoslavia have rediscovered their Europeanness, others have further strengthened their national identity. This paper answers the question of whether, three decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, a so-called “regional identity” still exists among the former Yugoslav states (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo). The authors set the initial hypothesis that belonging to a regional – in this case, Balkan – identity is more pronounced in the five candidate (Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia) and potential candidate countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and Kosovo) for European Union (EU) membership than in Slovenia and Croatia, which have become EU Member States. Hence, this article will provide insight into “regional identity” and the banality of “Balkanism” reproduced in state media. By examining articles on national online news portals, we will examine the linkage between symbols and deixes in media and their role in creating national and regional identity. This analysis will confirm our initial hypothesis that the term “regional identity” is much more prominent in the media of the EU candidate countries, than in those states which are already members of the EU. By analysing everyday nationalism in the media – a gap that exists in academic research – we aim to open up a discussion that can lead to some solutions for overcoming the identity dilemmas of the region.
... Geçmişin idealleştirilmesi ve yüceltilmesi ve altın çağ için duyulan nostaljik bir özlem milliyetçiliğin önemli unsurlarıdır. Zira, onun varsayılan büyüklüğü ve ihtişamı, şimdi ile karşılaştırma olanağını sağlar ve ulusun yeniden doğuşu için bir model görevi görür (Yumul ve Özkırımlı, 2000). Yapılan çalışmalar bazı ulusal geleneklerin yakın zamanda icat edildiğini (Hobsbawn ve Ranger, 1992) ve mevcut atmosferin hemen hemen her zaman ulusal geçmişin anlaşılmasını etkilediğini (Lowenthal, 2015) göstermiştir. ...
... Türk milliyetçiliği, ulusal nostalji fenomeninin önemli bir örneğidir: Geçmiş altın çağ inancı, Türk milliyetçiliğinin ayrılmaz bir parçasıdır (Yumul ve Özkırımlı, 2000) ve bu inanç hem laik hem de muhafazakâr gruplar tarafından paylaşılmaktadır. Örneğin, 20. yüzyılın başlarında laik Türk hükümeti tarafından önerilen "Türk Tarihi Tezi" ve "Güneş Dili Kuramı"nda, uzak geçmişte güçlü medeniyetlerin oluşmasında Türklerin çok etkili olduğu ve Türkçenin insanlık tarihindeki en eski dillerden biri olduğu iddia edilmiştir (Cagaptay, 2004). ...
... Önceki çalışmalar, Türk milliyetçiliğinin altın çağa olan güçlü inançları kapsadığını öne sürdüğü için, bu çalışmada Türk milliyetçiliğine odaklanıldı (örn., Yumul ve Özkırımlı, 2000). Kolektif nostaljinin bir türü olarak ulusun geçmiş altın çağına olan inanç, bağımlı değişken olarak kullanıldı. ...
Kolektif nostalji kavramına olan ilgi her geçen gün artmaktadır. Bu araştırmanın temel amacı, gruplar arası karşılaştırmaların olası etkilerine odaklanarak, Sosyal Kimlik Kuramı ve kolektif nostalji arasında bir bağlantı kurmaktır. Sosyal karşılaştırmaların ulusal nostalji düzeyini etkileyeceği ve kimliklenme düzeyinin bu etki üzerinde aracı bir rol oynayacağı hipotezi ileri sürülmüştür. İki deneysel çalışma yapılmıştır. Birinci çalışmada, kimliklenme düzeyi düşük olan katılımcılar ülkelerini daha zayıf askeri güce sahip olan diğer ülkelerle karşılaştırdıklarında, ulusal geçmişi daha çok yüceltmişlerdir. İkinci çalışmada, kimliklenme düzeyi yüksek olan katılımcılar ülkelerini daha iyi eğitim sistemine sahip olan diğer ülkelerle karşılaştırdıklarında, geçmiş altın çağ inançları artmıştır. Elde edilen sonuçlar, kimliklenme düzeyinin sosyal karşılaştırmaların ulusal nostalji üzerindeki etkisinde aracı bir rol oynadığını göstermiştir.
... Since the early 2000's, notable empirical researches focusing on how Turkish nationalism is represented and reproduced in media and cultural texts have given a new impulse to the literature on Turkish nationalism (e.g., Yumul and Özkırımlı, 2000;Gökalp, 2007;Gidişoğlu and Rızvanoğlu, 2011;Yüksel, 2012;Köse and Yılmaz, 2013). These studies essentially seek to investigate how Turkishness is reflected and perpetuated in everyday life, examining the nationalist rhetoric employed in media and press. ...
... These studies essentially seek to investigate how Turkishness is reflected and perpetuated in everyday life, examining the nationalist rhetoric employed in media and press. Building on Billig's concept of "banal nationalism," Yumul and Özkırımlı (2000) conducted an analysis of the Turkish press, surveying thirty-eight daily newspapers to explore their role in routinizing the concepts of nation and nationhood as normalized and unquestioned elements of daily life. The authors emphasize the crucial role played by the Turkish press in the everyday reproduction of nationhood, highlighting signals such as the use of the Turkish flag or map in newspaper logos, slogans referencing national identity, and newspaper names that serve as "constant reminders of nationhood, national ideals, and our place in the world" (Yumul and Özkırımlı, 2000: 789). ...
This article aims to shed light on the paradigm shifts in the academic studies on Turkish nationalism from the 1950s to the present by examining the approaches of these studies to the concept of Turkishness and Turkish nationalism. This study first examines various nationalism theories and current debates in the field, as the transformation in Turkish nationalism parallels theoretical discussions in nationalism studies. It then focuses early studies until the 1990s analyzing Turkish nationalism through modernization theory, and post-1990s research highlighting its hybrid, eclectic, and pervasive nature, alongside its connections to diverse political visions and previously overlooked aspects. Finally, the article centers on pioneering studies that emphasize the active role of subjectivity in the construction and reproduction of the nation by tracing Turkish nationalism in everyday life. The recent studies on Turkish nationalism highlight the positioning of the individual not as a passive recipient of nationalism, but as an active agent in its making.
... We tried to alleviate some concerns related to reliability and validity by including all articles published during the one-year period, controlling for potentially spurious factors (e.g., article type, number of days published), closely reading all of the articles to further unpack differences in meaning, and including newspapers with high levels of circulation that were published at least five days a week and, where possible, would be considered newspapers of record. Likewise, previous studies (i.e., De Nelson 2005;Elliott and Greer 2010;Eskjaer 2013;Kim and Weaver 2003;Vergne 2011;Yumul and Ozkirimli 2000) have drawn on all of the same newspapers that we used, so there is some precedent for assessing these papers. Finally, we relied on prior theoretical and quantitative cross-national research that has found a relationship between approval of homosexuality and economic development, democracy, and religion. ...
... 7. For research in Lebanon, see Charles W. Elliott and Clark F. Greer (2010) and Mikkel Eskjaer (2013); in Turkey, see Jean-PhilippeVergne (2011) and Arus Yumul and Umut Ozkirimli (2000); in Malaysia, see Sonia Ambrosio De Nelson (2005); and in Indonesia, see De Nelson (2005) (Vergne 2011), has over 40,000 daily subscribers with its online paper being viewed nearly a half million times per day (Open Source Center 2008:11). 9. ...
A lot of research attention has been devoted to understanding cross-national differences in attitudes about homosexuality. A key finding has been that richer, more democratic, and less religious nations are more supportive. However, aside from establishing these relationships, we know little about how public discourse about homosexuality differs across nations. To better understand how public discussions about sexual minorities are framed, this multimethods’ study examines over 800 newspaper articles from Muslim and Protestant-majority nations. Although there are no differences in the extent to which Muslim and Protestant nations discuss homosexuality in the context of religion, Muslim nations are more likely to frame homosexuality as a moral issue and use government claimsmakers. Very poor countries are also more likely to associate homosexuality with morality. Finally, more democratic nations are more likely to discuss homosexuality in the context of rights and include social movement leaders as claimsmakers.
... Consequently, Köse and Yılmaz reached the same conclusion as Yumul and Özkırımlı (2000), namely that the newspapers in the samples sensationalise the news and reproduce nationalism through explicit ideological references, inferences and specific contrasts. Moreover, despite their different positions along the political spectrum, 36 newspapers seemed to find a common denominator about nationalism, in that there were no significant differences among them in terms of constructing nationalistic semantics (ibid:924). ...
... By taking Billig's (1995) seminal work as a starting point for the discussion on the interplay between nationalism and media representations, I endeavoured to suggest how the flagging of Turkish nationalisms became evident in the media representations of Armenians. Although Yumul and Özkırımlı (2000) and Köse and Yılmaz (2012) replicated Billig's study for the Turkish context and pointed out how the press generates nationalism in an ordinary way, I intentionally picked out extraordinary periods to specifically observe the ways in which the 'flagging of the Turkish nation and nationalisms' came to light in the images of the Armenian issue and Armenians. When considered from this point of view the portrayals of minority groups in the national newspapers became significant for the construction and reproduction of a national discursive sphere to promote a certain sense of national belonging or exclusion. ...
The problematical notion of the ‘Armenian question’ has become a political and linguistic tool for the official genocide denial ever since the foundation of the Turkish Republic, and has come to stand for the controversy that exists around the denial and recognition of the Armenian Genocide at both national and international levels. This research explores how the ‘Armenian question’ in Turkey opens up a discursive space in which various forms of Turkish nationalism are constructed and reproduced, and addresses multifaceted narratives from members of the Armenian community. By employing this term I aim to challenge the attempt to decontextualize collective acts of violence against Armenians, restricting them to the period of the Ottoman Empire, and indicate how this issue goes far beyond the politics of genocide. The objective of my research is to point out particular production and consumption phases of the Armenian question in Turkey. The production side focuses on three national newspapers in order to unveil overlapping and divergent discursive strategies in their coverage of three recent incidents, namely the assassination of Hrant Dink, the murder of Sevag Balıkçı, and the public protest against the Khojaly Massacre. In contrast, the consumption side embraces the perceptions and experiences of particular members of the Armenian community in Istanbul with respect to past and present occurrences. This research thus uncovers consistencies and contradictions between news discourse and the responses of the Armenian interviewees concerning three particular events and sheds light on the asymmetrical production and consumption patterns of the Armenian question in Turkey. Drawing on data from both a critical discourse analysis of three cases in three Turkish national newspapers and forty-five semi-structured interviews with Armenians, this qualitative study seeks to contribute to the growing body of research on the Armenian question and Turkish nationalism.
... Numerous scholarly inquiries have examined banal nationalism in the Turkish context, particularly its portrayal in the media. Scholars such as Köse & Yılmaz (2012) and Yumul (2000) have observed the recurring presence of nationalist motifs and symbols in Turkish media, often subtly inserted into narratives, with the latter suggesting their normalization within journalistic practices. ...
Eurasianism blends European and Asian geographies, transcending spatial concepts to include cultural and ethnic elements. As an ideology, Eurasianism assigns meaning to national identity beyond the Western scope, adapting to various political contexts in the region. In Türkiye, it has evolved through nationalist, Kemalist, and socialist lenses, shifting its geopolitical focus from “the century of Turks” to “the century of Türkiye,” particularly during crises such as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts, which underscore the importance of territorial integrity for the sovereign existence of Azerbaijan and Armenia. This study examines the portrayal and evolution of Eurasianist identity in Turkish media during the geopolitical upheavals of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020 and Azerbaijan’s military operation in 2023. Utilizing a critical geopolitical framework, the research reveals the fluidity of Eurasianist discourse and the media’s role in constructing and influencing national identity. Analyzing two state-backed outlets (TRT Haber and Sputnik Türkiye) and a bilingual Armenian weekly (Agos), this study demonstrates how diverse media platforms contribute to Türkiye’s geopolitical imagination. The findings indicate that media outlets shape their narratives according to political agendas: TRT Haber promotes nationalist narratives to bolster regional power, Sputnik Türkiye challenges Western dominance and advocates for multipolarity, and Agos offers a humanitarian counter-narrative. This research contributes to scholarly discussions on Eurasianism in Türkiye and highlights its implications for understanding media influence on geopolitical conflicts, emphasizing the shift from national to regional identity formation.
... While things did return to a tough stance in foreign affairs, especially by the Turkish AKP's third election period in 2016, and several crises followed since, the countries are back again to a new rapprochement period. changes in ownership structure and commercialization in Greece by the 1980s and in Turkey by the 1990s (Papathanassopoulos et al., 2021;Yanardağoğlu, 2021); the prevalence of opinion-based journalism over fact-based journalism in both countries (Sunar, 2009); the large diversity in the number of the media but low levels of pluralism (Akser & Baybars-Hawks, 2023;Symrnaios, 2013), which became worse by 2010 because of the punishment and reward mechanisms of the AKP government in Turkey (Yeşil, 2018) and the measures of economic crises in Greece (Symrnaios, 2013); "Elite and government sources-based" (Hadjidimos, 1999, p. 13;Tılıç, 1997) and "us versus them" or "blaming the other" sort of news reporting that particularly works when the relations between Turkey and Greece are the issue (Kostarella, 2007;Lazarou, 2009;Millas, 2004;Sunar, 2009;Tılıç, 2006;Yumul & Özkırımlı, 2012); 5 last but not least, independent media's weaknesses (Boucas & Iosifidis, 2020;Kızılkaya, 2019;Papathanassopoulos et al., 2021). ...
The article compares experiences of female journalists in Turkey and Greece in andro-centric newsrooms and based on in-depth interwiew with 32 journalists.
... O termo nacionalismo banal se refere às ações de teor nacionalistas que são implícitas, apesar de estarem presentes no cotidiano das pessoas. A imagem metonímica do nacionalismo banal não é uma bandeira erguida e agitada com paixão intensa -é a de uma bandeira discretamente pendurada em um prédio público (YUMUL; ÖZKIRIMLI, 2000). No contexto do nacionalismo banal, o caráter implícito e relacional do afeto é uma temática familiar aos pressupostos das TNR. ...
Resumo: Este artigo propõe-se à criação de um conceito de nação à luz das Teorias Não-Representacionais (TNR). As TNR permitem romper com as limitações das formas tradicionais de representação ao focar sua reflexão sobre as relações, processos, práticas e corporificações que se estabelecem entre actantes no espaço geográfico. O artigo adota uma perspectiva bibliográfico-analítica e utiliza os conceitos de afeto, affordances e assemblages para transitar na interface entre nação e não-representação de modo a explorar suas potencialidades e limitações. Ao final, propõe a noção de que as nações são resultantes de arranjos relacionais heterogêneos entre pessoas, coisas e outros seres vivos, cuja dimensão é efêmera e incompatível com os limites territoriais dos Estados-nação.
Palavras-chave: Teorias Não-Representacionais; Nação; Assemblages.
Abstract: This article proposes the creation of a concept of nation in the light of non-representational theories (NRT). NRT make it possible to overcome the limitations of traditional forms of representation by focusing their reflection on the relationships, processes, practices and embodiments that are established between actants in geographic space.
... Although they have adopted the essence of these ideologies, individuals who defend these ideologies develop alternative discourses. 48 The following section draws on the findings of brief interviews with people who affixed Kemalist or Islamist-Ottoman symbols to their car rear-windshields, and media coverage of crucial issues that led to conflict between Kemalists and Islamists. It should be noted that, on both sides, not all are in favour of using these symbols on their cars, as some even oppose the practice. ...
In Turkey, the dominant political ideology is nationalism, but there are different variants competing for influence. Kemalism, the philosophy that laid the foundations for modern Turkey, advocated for a top-down modernization and secularisation of society, but also crucially involved creating a modern western-style nation state. The decades of the 1920s and 1930s saw the establishment of Kemalism as the official state ideology. Until the late 1990s, Kemalism remained as the state ideology, despite being challenged by a wide range of political tendencies. The greatest and most serious threat has come from political Islam, which rejects key tenets of the Kemalist ideology, namely western modernization and secularism. Conflict between Kemalists and Islamists on the national level has simmered since the 1970s, but a defining moment occurred in 2002 with the electoral victory of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). Over a period of 20 years in power, the AKP has eliminated much of the Kemalist improvements to Turkey's state institutions, society and culture. The result of the AKP’s Islamic nationalist policies has been increased political polarisation and friction in Turkish politics and society. This political polarisation led to an unusual practice in everyday politics; supporters on both sides manifest their respective ideologies via stickers with political messages displayed on the rear windscreens of cars as a challenge to the opposing ideology. Based on the findings of interviews conducted with owners of cars displaying these messages, this study aims to analyse the meaning of this practice in relation to everyday nationalism, and its implications for Turkish politics at large.
... After the 1990s, against the nature of the nation-building efforts of the early Republican period, more implicit symbols and expressions found their way into the media, everyday life, and popular culture. Termed "Banal Nationalism" by Billig (2010), this phenomenon became more widespread (Köse and Yılmaz, 2012;Yumul and Özkırımlı, 2000). ...
This article examines how NGOs representing social groups in Turkey symbolically construct national identity by describing national days on Instagram. National signs and symbols function to communicate national identity to its members and create a sense of belonging. Visual images also appear as traces of social, economic, and political processes in which identities are shaped. Therefore, this paper argues that analyzing Instagram posts by NGOs can provide insight into how national identity is constructed through national days. NGOs' organization fields are chosen considering the 2018 report of 'NGOs in the Development Process' by the Turkish Ministry of Development, and the 'maximum diversity sampling' method was used for analysis. A grounded coding process supported a thematic analysis approach was used to explore how NGOs portray national days. For this qualitative thematic analysis, a coding frame was used to conduct cluster analyses of the symbols using QDA Miner software to understand how they relate. The findings indicate that the celebration messages are mostly visualized through certain national symbols in social media. These differ in three main national identity discourses (Kemalist Nationalism, Right-Conservatism, Liberal-Kemalism and small segment of Islamist discourse and Turkism discourse shaped around nationalism, militarism and partly Islamism) parallel to NGO's political and ideological positions or social groups and values they represent.
... conceptual contours: the BoundarIes of representatIon While mainstream media have been comprehensively discussed for their central role in consolidating national homogeneity and constructing collective identities (see among others: Anderson, 1991; Yumul & Özkırımlı, 2000;Postill, 2006;Spassov, 2012;Bilgiç, 2017), they have been also criticised for the institutional mediation of identity politics and the under-or misrepresentation of particular groups with limited access to content production. Attention has been drawn to the reproduction of the public stigmatisation and the discursive creation of negative, discriminating, Otherising and/or Orientalising stereotypes of minorities (Alia & Bull, 2005;Canut et al., 2016;Cheshmedzhieva-Stoycheva, 2018;Poole, 2002;Richardson, 2004; van Dijk, 1991 among others). ...
This chapter explores the impact of ethnic journalism as a social mission in Zimbabwe. National FM is one of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Cooperation’s (ZBC) radio stations established to address ethnic minorities, who for long were forgotten in the national discourse. This chapter, with the use of contemporary examples, explores the extent to which National FM has executed its role in safeguarding ethnic identities, languages and cultures in Zimbabwe. Using a combination of social identity and social responsibility theoretical frames and the qualitative approach, the study found that the National FM is failing to play its normative role of catering for ethnic minorities, as its current role is relegated to translation of hegemonic discourses.
... Newspapers have long represented a good example of what Michael Billig's (1995) much-used concept 'banal nationalism' means in practice, playing a major role in the daily reproduction of nationhood, while the nation in itself is an important component a news discourse formation (Higgins, 2004;Yumul & Özkirimli, 2000). By that way the reproduction of national identity becomes a form of life (Billig, 1995, p. 68). ...
During recent years media discussion over the gravity of climate change has increased rapidly. One of the most used bywords has been ‘carbon footprint’, a concept with a moral appeal to global responsibility and a sense of global environmental togetherness. However, ‘carbon footprint responsibility’ cannot be separated from nationalistically loaded affects and their representations but instead it has effected new articulations that support state-centric ideologies, offering a fresh starting point for re-conceptualizing the theories of nationalism. This article analyses how the Finnish media constructs a contradictory discourse in which the moral debate over carbon footprint responsibility merges with nationalistically loaded argumentation.
... The concept of banal nationalism has often been applied in media analysis and cultural analysis in a wider sense. Prompted by Billig's own illustrative analysis of banal nationalist discourse in British daily newspapers, several authors have used this concept to examine the periodical press (Yumul and Özkirimli 2000;Law 2001), while some have also applied it to the analysis of debates over architectural projects (McNeill and Tewdwr Jones 2003), and the analysis of advertisements, national symbols and state-issued money (Foster 2002). Brubaker's concept of everyday ethnicity, and especially his suggestions for analytical approaches that avoid becoming involved in the reification of ethnic, national and other groups (2004,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18), also offer several useful clues that could be taken up in an examination of the relationship between the mass media and nationalism. ...
XENOPHOBIA AS POLITICAL FACT
CONTEMPLATING XENOPHOBIA IN A
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY FRAMEWORK
... First, the analyzed patterns of the representation of refugees show similar patterns to mass media representations in terms of stereotyping and depicting refugees as economic burdens or security threats (Chouliaraki andStolic, 2017: 1164;Harrison, 2016: 5-8). Second, similar to mass media (Yumul and Özkirimli, 2000), the analysis shows that social media users also often do not question the role or existence of the nation, flagging the national community in their tweets. Thus, social media becomes a site of nation-building through banal manifestations of the nation (Billig, 1995). ...
This study analyzes social media representations of refugees in Turkey and discusses their role in shaping public opinion. The influx of millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey has created heated debates about their presence and future in the country. One of these debates was triggered by President Erdoğan’s statement that Turkey would issue citizenship rights to Syrians in July 2016. Due to a lack of critical voices about refugee issues in Turkey’s mass media sphere, social media has become a key platform for citizens to voice their opinions. Through a discourse analysis of tweets about the issue of refugees’ citizenship, I will map different perceptions of refugees in Turkey. I argue that despite contesting discourses about Syrians, the debate on social media reinforces nationalism and an ethnocentric understanding of citizenship in Turkey. As the number of refugees and migrants increases rapidly worldwide, they become the new ‘others’ of national imagined communities. Social media becomes a key communication space where the nation is discursively constructed in a bottom-up manner through manifestations of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The analysis shows that social media contributes to trivialization and normalization of discrimination and hatred against Syrian refugees through disseminating overt discourses of ‘Othering’. Social media also enables more covert forms of discrimination through ‘rationalized’ arguments that are used to justify discrimination through the basis of false/non-verified information. Thus, Twitter becomes a space for critical, bottom-up, yet nationalistic and discriminatory statements about refugees.
... The mass media, starting with newspapers, plays a pre-eminent role in the creation and maintenance of national identities (cf., Fürsich 2010; Blain and O'Donnell 1998). Yumul and Özkırımlı (2000), Brookes (1999), and Boyle and Haynes (2009) all regard the media as a key societal sphere in which discourses on different national identities are mediated. Media discourses have a considerable hegemonic power and a role in drawing particular stereotypical and biased image of a nation; they have the power to represent, or misrepresent, a culture in a certain way (Hall 1997a). ...
... The mass media, starting with newspapers, plays a pre-eminent role in the creation and maintenance of national identities (cf., Fürsich 2010; Blain and O'Donnell 1998). Yumul and Özkırımlı (2000), Brookes (1999), and Boyle and Haynes (2009) all regard the media as a key societal sphere in which discourses on different national identities are mediated. Media discourses have a considerable hegemonic power and a role in drawing particular stereotypical and biased image of a nation; they have the power to represent, or misrepresent, a culture in a certain way (Hall 1997a). ...
A large body of literature in representational studies reflects a deep professional concern over the negative effect of the role of the media in representing significant Others. Western media's coverage of an international event, in this case, a football competition, raises some ethical questions about the choice of specific lexical items and textual contents. Drawing on the work of Stuart Hall's representation theory, this article examines how Turkey, a nation located on the semi-periphery of Europe, is represented in Western media outlets. By looking at the role that sections of the British sports press plays in their construction of the Turkish national identity, I evaluate the Euro 2016 and Euro 2004 reporting of the UEFA European Championship qualifying matches between Turkey and England. I apply a combination of lexical and narrative analysis, and I question the way that Turkey is represented in the British sport texts. The style and language used in the presentation of football games reveals that British media outlets are prone to present England's politically and economically powerful position, and its cultural superiority over Turkey. Findings also suggest that the discourse of the “West and the Rest” is alive in the modern world.
... Furthermore, international sport represents a stage on which women can actively perform their national identity (Edensor, 2002). While popular discussions of banal nationalism often focus on the reading of media texts (Billig, 1995;Bishop & Jaworski, 2003;Yumul & Özkirimli, 2000), this study has drawn upon the experiences of a group of female athletes, thereby demonstrating a marked change in the focus of research on the relationship between English national identity and sport (Bishop & Jaworski, 2003;Tuck, 2003). Very few research studies have looked at international sport as a site for inculcating national identity from the perspective of the very actors who embody or signify the nation. ...
It has long been claimed that sport plays an important role in the formulation of national identity. Key to understanding this relationship is Michael Billig’s concept of banal nationalism, which is used in this article to examine national symbols that act as daily reminders of the nation. Specifically, the article discusses the relationship between Englishness and sport by drawing upon data from interviews with representative English sportswomen in association football, cricket, netball, and rugby union. The article demonstrates the important role that (men’s) sport plays in developing a sense of national identity in England and, in particular, one that is distinct from Britishness. Furthermore, the significance of national symbols is evidenced as banal reminders of national identity for England’s sportswomen.
... The discourses of national identity were variegated, especially in terms of political leaning and religiosity. As Yumul and Özkırımlı (2000) identify, the dynamics of religiosity are the most persistent force instigating contesting definitions of Turkish nationality. In the context of Turkey's appearance on the Eurovision stage, these conflicts did not necessarily entail clear-cut boundaries, such as 'Westwardlooking' secular nationalism and its 'anti-Westernist' conservative counterparts. ...
This study examines the Eurovision stage as a cultural space that cultivated an affective-discursive terrain forging Turkish national identity. It draws upon the media texts as a heuristic to examine how an image of ‘Turkishness’ was created and negotiated. Focusing in particular on four specific cases (Semiha Yankı in 1975, Çetin Alp in 1983, Şebnem Paker in 1997 and Sertab Erener in 2003), this study suggests that the Eurovision stage was a space where ‘Turkishness’ encountered an imagined ‘Europeanness’. In these cases, affective discourses gave meanings of national allegories of ‘Turkishness’ to performing bodies on the Eurovision stage. The affective registers generated a discursive formation shaping the contours of ‘Turkishness’ in relation to Europe. Yet these discourses did not generate fixed and stable meanings. In particular, the construction of national success was negotiated and contested in terms of the appropriateness of the national embodiment.
... Despite the fact that the state might call on its citizens to fulfil their duties in the army and to even die for their nation, nationalism is conspicuously absent from discussion and is seldom seen as a problematic subject. In line with this Umut Özkırımlı and Arus Yumul (2000) ...
Ein Hauptanliegen meiner Arbeit ist es, zu zeigen, dass sich kemalistisch-säkulare und islamische Gruppierungen in der türkischen Gesellschaft nicht länger gegenüberstehen. Das Bild vom Kampf zwischen Islamismus und Säkularismus, auf den die politische Diskussion in der Türkei zum Teil reduziert wird, war und ist nur in geringem Maße gültig. In Anlehnung an Taylor, Asad und Mahmood habe ich deshalb versucht, zu zeigen, wie sich der Kampf zwischen Säkularismus und Islamismus in eine Auseinandersetzung um Macht, Rechte und identitäre Anerkennung übersetzen lässt. Dass diese Sichtweise heute offensichtlicher ist als noch vor einem Jahrzehnt, hat vor allem damit zu tun, dass sich seit 2002 und vor allem ab 2008 viele Vereinigungen und Initiativen herausgebildet haben, die über diese gesellschaftliche Spaltung hinweg agieren. Für die muslimische Studentengruppe, die ich in meiner Arbeit beschreibe, heißt das vor allem der Beginn eines gesellschaftlichen Engagements, das sich nicht mehr auf die Moschee oder allenfalls einen konservativen Stadtteil begrenzen lässt. Muslimisches politisches Engagement sucht nach Verbündeten unter den Säkularen und beschäftigt sich nun auch – jenseits des AKP-Mainstreams – mit all den Themen, die eigentlich nur die „modernen, säkularen“ Türken angingen: Verfassung, religiöse, ethnische und sexuelle Minderheiten, Flüchtlingspolitik, Arbeiterrechte und vieles mehr. Die Rolle, die dem Islam dabei als politischer und gesellschaftlicher Faktor zukommt, wird hier neu verhandelt und diskutiert.
... Many, wishing to emulate the original research, tried to transfer his ideas to new settings or identify additional ways in which the nation is reproduced through banal forms. Some followed the original banal nationalism thesis by focusing on the routine representation of the nation in places as diverse as Scotland (Law 2001), Turkey (Ozkirimli and Yumul 2000), Belgium (Dhoest 2007) and Japan (Perkins 2010). Others moved away from Billig's preoccupation with dominant institutions by focusing on the everyday talk of 'ordinary people' and the ways in which they often unthinkingly drew on national frameworks to make sense of particular issues or processes (Condor 2000;Condor and Abell 2006;Skey 2010;Valkonen and Ruuska 2012). ...
This edited collection explores the continuing appeal of nationalism around the world. The authors’ ground-breaking research demonstrates the ways in which national priorities and sensibilities frame an extraordinary array of activities, from classroom discussions and social media posts to global policy-making, as well as identifying the value that can come from feeling part of a national community, especially during times of economic uncertainty and social change. They also note how attachments to nation can often generate powerful emotions, happiness and pride as well as anger and frustration, which can be used to mobilize substantial numbers of people into action.
Featuring contributions from leading social scientists across a range of disciplines, including sociology, geography, political science, social psychology, media and cultural studies, the book presents a number of case studies covering a range of countries including Russia, USA, New Zealand, Serbia, Japan and Greece.
Everyday Nationhood will appeal to students and scholars of nationalism, globalization and identity across the social sciences as well as those with an interest in understanding the role of nationalism in shaping some of the most pressing political crises- migration, economic protectionism, populism - of the contemporary era.
... Many, wishing to emulate the original research, tried to transfer his ideas to new settings or identify additional ways in which the nation is reproduced through banal forms. Some followed the original banal nationalism thesis by focusing on the routine representation of the nation in places as diverse as Scotland (Law 2001), Turkey (Ozkirimli and Yumul 2000), Belgium (Dhoest 2007) and Japan (Perkins 2010). Others moved away from Billig's preoccupation with dominant institutions by focusing on the everyday talk of 'ordinary people' and the ways in which they often unthinkingly drew on national frameworks to make sense of particular issues or processes (Condor 2000;Condor and Abell 2006;Skey 2010;Valkonen and Ruuska 2012). ...
The introduction puts the work of Billig’s Banal Nationalism into context. It briefly traces its origins and discusses its key argument: nationalism is a dominant discursive register because it pervasively‚ but unconsciously populates our everyday space and time. The introduction also discusses the multifarious ways in which banal nationalism has been operationalized in various settings and disciplinary contexts and it offers a short overview of the ways in which it has been criticised. The remaining of the introduction is devoted to the presentations of the contributions of this edited volume.
... Örneğin, okullarda okutulan milli marşlar, resmî kurumlarda ve daha pek çok yerde görebildiğimiz ülke bayrakları, medyanın milliyetçi ve ayrımcı ifadeler kullanması (Yumul ve Ozkirimli, 2000) gündelik hayata yerleşen ve milliyetçiliği yeniden üreten 'sıradan' simgeler ve durumlardandır. Ulusların kendisine politik bir çatı bulmasıyla, yani kendilerini görünür kılmasıyla milliyetçilik sona ermez, yaşanılan çevre tarafından sıradanlaştırılır. ...
... Bora (2003),Bora and Can (2004),Saracoglu, (2009), Ozkirimli& Yumul (2000 ...
The Kurdish Question, which dates back to the Ottoman Era, has been a constituent element of narratives of Turkish nationalism for the past 30 years. The Kurdish Question stands as the most prominent “other” of Turkish nationalism. The members of two groups, Kurds and Turks, became highly politicised throughout 30 years of internal conflict and through their daily encounters, giving way to a constant redefinition of the understanding of nationalism and ethnicity. The encounters and experiences of these two groups have facilitated the development of various narrative forms of personal nationalism in daily life. Accordingly, the daily manifestations of the Kurdish Question and Turkish nationalism have grown as an object of academic interest. The question of how ordinary people produce – and are produced in – personal narratives of nationalism is a subject that still needs to be addressed, and this thesis aims to fill this gap by examining the notion of “personal narratives”. Analysing nationalism through personal narratives enables us to see how hegemonic nationalist ideology is reproduced and practiced by individuals through various dynamics. The thesis finds that the determining theme in the personal narratives of Turks and Kurds follows fundamentally the official ideology of the state about the Kurds, which is based principally on „a strategy of denial‟. The macro political transformations of the 2000s and the increased potential of encountering the “other” in daily life underline the challenging nature of this ideological strategy of denial. Herein, while the Turkish participants define themselves as the benevolent party in their nationalist narratives, they mark Kurdish people as terrorists, separatists and primitives. In contrast, the narratives of the Kurdish participants are characterised by the adoption of a “self-defence” strategy against the dominant negative perceptions of Turkish society about their culture: they assert that they are in fact not ignorant; not terrorists; not disloyal citizens, and so on. The narratives of the Turkish participants about the ethnic “other”, the Kurds, generally follow a strategy of contempt and accusation; yet personal experiences give them the opportunity to politicise the problem on different grounds by empathising or humanising. On the Kurdish side, the subjects of the personal narratives are more often the state and the army than Turkish individuals, and again they construct a narrative that endeavours to reverse the dominant negative perceptions about Kurds. They attempt to negate the denial strategy through both collective and personal stories of the discrimination they have experienced over the years and generations. Vital questions such as through which mechanisms of resistance do ordinary people construct and practice their ethnic identities, again become visible through their personal narratives.
... According to the work of Anderson (1983) and, to a greater extent, Michael Billig (1995, pp. 6-18), the press (and media) play a foundational role in establishing nationalism in an "imagined community," and not only as a form of an extreme reaction to specific events, but in fact as a daily occurrence (see, for example, Yumul & Özkirimli, 2000). The common practice of reporting the news is nation-centric. ...
Patriotism and triumph are directly affiliated to historical memories and to every country’s history, since every nation / society’s need to proclaim its national achievements in every aspect of daily life, from politics to economy, science and beyond. Following several countries’ turbulent history, since their origins, traditionally the media tend to express the feeling of patriotism that overwhelms the local society. In this perspective, patriotism and triumph concerning national achievements seem to be among the traditional characteristics in the journalistic content of the press. However, although evident in the media content, it is not yet identified in what extend they exist and through which characteristics. This papers addresses these two issues in the content of the current national press in Cyprus, aiming to examine the specific characteristics of patriotism and triumph and the extend up to which they are evident today in the journalistic practices. Taking into account the loyal – facilitator model of journalism, the research is based both on content analysis of the national newspapers with the higher circulation and on a survey concerning the journalists’ opinion that work for these newspapers. The sample of content analysis includes an extensive number of news items, since the research was conducted in a two years period of time, while more than two thirds of the journalists working in these newspapers participated in the survey. The aim of this paper is to clarify whether the national press remains attached to practices of the past or new modes of journalism have arisen.
It was feared that the digital divide would deny citizens in developing countries opportunities for increased participation in politics through internet-enabled communication technologies. However, the divide has been bridged by citizens through the appropriation of Western technologies like internet access through mobile phones and cyber cafes. In fact, the difference between North and South in the use of the internet to participate in politics is quickly becoming unnoticeable, especially regarding the use of social media. This paper describes the unforeseen impact of the rapid adoption of social media in Africa, a continent that has been lethargic to other Western technological advances. The paper uses Anderson’s (1991/1983) theory of imagined community and Billig’s (1995) banal nationalism thesis to describe the role of social media groups in building banal nationalism, a process that unobtrusively legitimises the otherwise artificial nation-state. Through analysis of the activities of social media groups, the paper describes how, besides enabling the formation of social groups, social media has created a new sense of consciousness and deep attachment to the concept of a nation-state in Kenya.
Bu çalışma Türk milliyetçiliğinin söylem alanında nasıl inşa edildiğini ve yeniden üretildiğini ‘Ermeni sorunu’ ile yeniden karşılaşması üzerinden incelemektedir. 24 Nisan 2011 tarihinde gerçekleşen Sevag Balıkçı cinayeti vakasına odaklanılarak bu yüzleşmenin ulusal gazetelerde günlük olarak hangi söylemsel stratejiler aracılığıyla sunulduğu gösterilmektedir. Araştırmada seçilen üç ulusal gazetenin bu olayı nasıl haberleştirdiği eleştirel söylem analizi yöntemi kullanılarak tespit edilmiştir. Araştırma bulgularına göre vakanın medya temsillerinde maktulün etnik kökeni, şehitlik durumu ve ulus için fedakârlık yapması öne çıkan temalar olarak belirlenmiştir. Böylece millet olma halinin sürekli imlenmesi ve hatırlatılması ile milliyetçi söylemlerin haber söylemlerine gündelik olarak nasıl eklemlenebildiği tartışılmaktadır. Bu bağlamda ulusal gazetelerin Balıkçı cinayetini tarihsel ve politik arka planından soyutlayarak ve ‘Ermeni sorunu’ ile bağlantısını kopararak, Türk milliyetçiliğinin söylemsel, temsili ve dışlayıcı yönlerini açığa çıkarır şekilde konumlandırdığı ortaya çıkarılmıştır.
In this chapter, we looked into the practice of news viewing among students, who regularly viewed both the local and national editions of one of the leading televised news. We found that while news viewing gratifies their social needs, the news presented a stereotype that they did not identify with and deepened cultural identities rather than promote a national one. This paper has raised the (re)thinking of national belonging especially by those groups that are minoritized in the national imagination as a result of media representation.
In the early 2000s, the Turkish liberal elite who was endorsed particularly by democratic reforms wholeheartedly supported Turkey’s bid for a greater role in its near abroad by re-narrating the Ottomanist view. They thought that if they adeptly highlighted the already embedded references to cosmopolitanism and the ideal of co-existence in it, they would be able to won the so-called Pax Ottomana a universal meaning among the nations in Turkey’s surroundings. This study holds that the first decade of the 2000s was a temporal regnum, “a moment” whereby the historical Ottoman heritage in the Balkans, which Turkey continued to restore with full enthusiasm, might have simultaneously contributed to this intellectual enterprise.
The process of nation-building can be seen as a never-ending attempt for a considerable number of nation-states. Education has been one of the primary tools in this process. It can be argued that nation-building policies should be seen as aspects of an attempt rather than a project that can be realized successfully in all terms. Following this argument, this study has two main objectives: to draw a detailed literature review addressing the dynamics, actors and stages of the nation-building process and nationalism and to critically analyze how Turkish academia has dealt with nationalism education. This study will proceed via the following sections: Firstly, the main theoretical discussions concerning nationalism will be covered. In this regard, ethnic/civic nationalism and other types of nationalism, including the concept of "banal nationalism" coined by Michael Billig (1995) will be under scrutiny. Secondly, the state-formation process from a cultural viewpoint will be analyzed. In this part, the works of thinkers such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci will be referred to. Next, 'the nation-building process as a never-ending attempt' will be addressed. Finally, the teaching of nationalism in Turkish academia will be discussed from a historical viewpoint.
News stories carry boundary setting language that constructs nations as homogenous imagined communities and furthers the us-vs-them metanarrative that separates those who belong to one nation from those who do not. However, it may be possible that boundary-setting representations may be applied to groups within the nation-state. This article explores this possibility by examining the discourse constructed by mediated communication such as local and national television news programs about the Mindanao region in the southern Philippines. Results show that Mindanao-based journalists present Mindanao to local viewers as different, neglected, and violent. This is possibly an indication of how historical social processes involved in the emergence of the Mindanao state intersect the discursive ones concerned with national and regional identity construction.
The political, social, and technological transformations in Bulgaria in the last 30 years resulted in the appearance of new actors and channels in the media system that correspond to the diversity of interests, views, and attitudes. This chapter focuses on such new communication outlets—the online ethnic media of the biggest ethnic minority in Bulgaria, the Turkish one. Produced primarily in Turkish language in online domains, these channels reflect the interests of the members of the group, display their points of view, and address their concerns. The chapter aims at showing their role in (1) contributing to local news coverage, (2) reshaping the stigmatising minority portrayals in mainstream media, and (3) creating cross-border news networks, imaginary routes between places, and transnational connections between people.
This article explores Turkey’s recent increased interest in the Antarctic by deconstructing how this interest contributes to the making of Antarctic nationalism(s). It makes two arguments. First, Turkey’s status- seeking by being present in the Antarctic contributes to Antarctic nationalism(s) by invoking three distinct yet overlapping strands of nationalisms – banal, pragmatic-techno and Kemalist nationalisms, or what we term assemblage nationalism. Second, we argue that it was this nationalist trope that became the mutual language between Turkey’s ruling elite and scientists, and one of the factors that prompted a change of strategy in Turkey’s Antarctic policy. Turkey’s status-seeking combined with this nationalist trope, which highlighted compatibility with the former’s broader discourse on technological upgrading and economic development, helped the Turkish ruling elite and scientists frame and make sense of the country’s presence in Antarctica. We conclude that when status-seeking involves collaboration with foreigners, a ‘more benign’ form of nationalism becomes possible.
Banal Osmanlıcılık Osmanlı mirasının olumsuz biçimde algılandığı bir coğrafyada 400 yıllık Osmanlı Barışından esinlenen gemeinschaft tarzı bir bölgeselciliğin ana anlatısı olma şansını 2000’li yıllarda buldu. Bunda gerek Türkiye içindeki liberalleşme dalgası, gerekse Soğuk Savaşın ardından eski Yugoslavya’da yaşanan krizlerin Türk toplumunun ulus devletin içinde sıkıştırdığı ulus tasvirinin aniden genişleyip bendini aşmasını sağlaması önemli rol oynadı. 2000’lerin ikinci onuncu yılından itibaren ise banal Osmanlıcılık evine döndü ve Türk kimliğinin evrilmesi sürecine katkı vermeye devam etti. Anahtar kelimeler: Banal milliyetçilik, bölgeselcilik, Osmanlıcılık, Türk kimliği.
This paper examines the Turkish popular press’s early coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. The problematic ofthe article centers on how Covid-19 news in the popular press reproduces traditional reporting practices andideological orientations rather than informing readers about this new global crisis. This problematic is discussedin two theoretical tracks. The first is news theory: it is argued that mainstream journalism’s production practicesand discursive nature lead it to exclude the new knowledge it is supposed to contain. The second is nationalistideology: it is argued that reporting on Covid-19 rhetorically reproduces banal nationalism rather than equippingreaders with the knowledge needed for an effective and political citizenry. Using this framework, I employed acritical discourse analysis model to examine all the news about Covid-19 in the daily newspaper Sabah, which Itreat as representative of the Turkish popular press, during the month after the first Covid-19 patient was an nounced in Turkey. I summarize the examples relevant to the article’s problematic in a table using the macro andmicro structures of van Dijk’s model, and I use the rhetorical analysis component of that model to evaluate thefindings. I observe that the Covid-19 pandemic was reduced to a banal national story in the popular press, withan emphasis on being a certain kind of nation and flag-waving nationalism. The popular press used Covid-19as a rhetorical device to define and position “us” (Turks) and “them” (other Western nations) rather than provid ing readers with the new information necessary to develop policies to address the social and economic crisescapitalist nations faced during the pandemic.
On the question of whether Turkey has been turning away from Europe in the last decade, this research argues that there has been a false promise of Europeanisation of the Turkish national identity since the pro-Islamist AKP government came to power in 2002. Adopting a critical constructivist approach has revealed that the Europeanisation process has contributed to the domestic power struggle of competing Turkish nationalist discourses in maintaining and transforming Turkey’s Kemalist nation-state identity that, paradoxically, has empowered de-Europeanisation of Turkey’s identity. An analysis of debate in the print media discourse empirically shows how Turkey constructs its identity as ‘the other’ in Europe in different discourses of Turkish nationalism. Consequently, this study points out that the domestic power struggles involved in the reconstruction of Turkey’s identity, which was triggered by the Europeanisation process that targeted the Kemalist and Europeanist construction, has consolidated the Islamist, post-Kemalist nation-state identity discourse.
This chapter establishes the nature of the news media and its journalism during the decades of Kemalism in Turkey. The illiberality of these governments and the clientelism which developed between the state and the news media owners has meant the journalistic tradition in Turkey is not strong, but it does exist. Moreover, it argues that securitisation of the new media with the aim of discrediting its journalism is not new and is especially relevant with regard to the Kurdish issue since the 1980s. Kurdish journalists have long had to choose between their personal security and doing their jobs as writing about the Kurdish issue was often conflated with support for the PKK. It argues that this approach was written into the constitution following the 1980 coup enabling the state to crackdown on anything deemed to be a threat to the “state”.
This article looks at banal expressions of nationalism and cosmopolitanism among Serbian Londoners on social media. The findings of this ethnographic research and in-depth interviews show that most participants perceive Serbian national identity as stigmatized due to the legacy of the civil war in the 1990s. Most participants hence employ different strategies in coping with the perceived stigma and redefining what it means to be Serbian. These strategies depend on the period of migration, the affordances of social media, and intended publics. Banal nationalism and banal cosmopolitanism are often manifestations of these strategies on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with an aim to correct national identity, by presenting it either as superior or as cosmopolitan and exotic difference.
Kurds are the largest minority group in Turkey and their position is one of conflict with the ‘Turkishness Contract,’ a concept that describes the unspoken convention ensuring the ethnic privilege of Sunni-Turks and the exclusion or assimilation of those who resist Turkification. Kurds have thus experienced oppression since late Ottoman times and throughout the Republican years, up to the present day. This article suggests that the Kurdish media in Turkey have always had to negotiate state oppression by articulating a strategy of resistance to the hegemonic knowledge imposed by the state and reproduced by the mainstream media. They thus reject the Turkification that would be required to abide by the Turkishness Contract. This article's investigation of the Kurdish media takes place through an exploration of an online news platform, a self-proclaimed ‘voice of the weak.’ The data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with journalists and editors of the platform.
This study is about the information and communication networks in the daily
life of the Ottoman Empire in Suraiya Faroqhi’s study of “Ottoman Culture and
Everyday Life from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century” published in 1997
by Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları. Faroqhi draws the framework of a mobile network
within the everyday life of the Ottoman Empire in her book, which is composed
of three parts in the framework of the culture formation, arts and cultural exchange chapters. In this everyday life, information travels in multiple ways between women, men, neighbors, muslim judges, merchants, travelers, pilgrims, dervishes and ruling classes. Faroqhi also pointed out the importance of places
in information circulation and sharing among communication subjects. In this
context, she also highlighted how they have contributed to the mobility of the
network, such as houses, markets, hospitals, prisons, bakeries, conventions,
mosques, libraries and so on. Faroqhi established Ottoman ‘s analysis of everyday life through contrasts of urban - rural, high culture - folk culture, riches - poor
and more of the same. According to these analyzes in Faroqhi’s work, it can be
said that the information and communication networks in the daily life of the
Ottoman Empire draw a versatile, mobile portrait. As a result, it can be said that
Faroqhi set out a framework for the daily life of the Ottoman Empire, set out
from concrete data, and extended this framework through subjects and spaces,
and contributed significantly to the literature in the field.
Keywords: Ottoman Empire, daily life, information, communication
Many key problems in the study nationalism theory can be examined through the lens of clothing practices. This article relates the study of clothing to nationalism theory. It suggests clothing is an example of Billig’s ‘banal nationalism.’ Asking who is forbidden, obliged, or permitted to wear nationalized clothing reveals how patriots imagine the national community. Plans to introduce a national costume hint at the imagined locus of sovereignty. Finally, debates over the authenticity of national costume mirror the Warwick debate. Clothing thus forms a useful object of study for nationalism theorists.
This article develops a methodological critique of a widespread measurement of national identity through surveys, the so-called “Linz-Moreno question” (LMQ) and of its epistemological foundation, the theory of “dual identity”. We chose Spain as a case study for our
research because of its internal variability in terms of identity feelings between its regions and the availability of quality data. We have divided the seventeen Spanish Autonomous Communities (ACs) into four groups, in accordance to their identity structure. We present
two big groups of ACs, one including the ACs with primacy of nationwide nationalistic feelings, and the other one containing those ACs with significant presence of sub-state nationalisms. Then, we divide each of these categories into two, attending to the strength of their identity feelings. Using qualitative methodologies, we found differences in the reproduction process of nationalism for each group of ACs, what strengthens the validity of our classification. Finally, we tested our main hypothesis with a multinomial logistic regression that provides empirical evidence showing that the LMQ is not a good indicator of national identity for weakly nationalized ACs. We conclude that the dual identity theory hides relevant differences related to the hierarchy and nature of collective identities in modern societies. Consequently, we should problematize merely descriptive analyses of collective identities and begin to treat national identity as an ideological expression of nationalism. The critique of the LMQ presented in this article wants to contribute to a better measurement of identities in modern societies.
Keywords: nationalism, autonomous communities, Spain, Linz-Moreno question, national
identity, dual identity.
In this chapter, Michael Billig re-assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Banal Nationalism, responds to some of the arguments put forward in the other chapters in this collection and outlines some possible ways in which research on the topic might proceed
The thesis examines the nature of Turkish nationalism during the Cold War period regarding poems written by ordinary people in Turkey. It aims to understand how Turkish people saw and generated nationalism in that era. In the context of nationalism, particular common themes have emerged such as nationalist feelings and solidarity by members of the nation. In this sense, anti-communism, militarism, nationalist symbols, the question of Cyprus, hostility against Greek and Russian states/societies, national territories, aggression (the dark side of nationalism in its call for revenge), self-sacrifice, emphasis on national identity/culture, superiority, praising Turkishness, and close relations with Turkic and Muslim communities were found influential in expressing nationalism. A library-based study was effective in the collection of sample poems through Turkish and nationalist journals working on frequency analysis. Thus, "everyday nationalism" is the basis of the study in terms of "the perspective of ordinary people".
After its 1979 revolution, Islamism became Iran’s main policy as regards its domestic and foreign affairs. However, nationalism continued to exist. After the revolution, the national identity of Iranianness based on Shii Islam and pre-Islamic Persian history was created. By merging Shii traditions, pre-Islamic Persian culture, anti-imperialism, Third Worldism, and anti-Zionism, this new identity was introduced as one of belonging. One can claim that it was also built on common values held by Iranians living inside and outside the country. One part of this undertaking was the use of banknotes, coins, and postage stamps, which can only be issued by the state, as instruments of daily nationalism designed to constantly re-produce the desired identity among its people, in this case Iranianness. In this respect, the state uses such visual symbols to defend the official identity against the existence of sub-national identities.
L'après-1980 en Turquie est considéré comme une période de libéralisation, non seulement dans le domaine économique, mais aussi dans le domaine politique. L'un de ses aspects principaux est une libéralisation sensible du discours. En effet, des thèmes auparavant tabous peuvent désormais être débattus, comme la religion et sa place dans la sphère publique, ou les identités particulières. L'alévisme est souvent pris pour exemple de cette libéralisation du discours identitaire. En effet, pour la première fois, les alévis prennent massivement la parole sur eux-mêmes et l'alévisme auparavant secret et tabou est largement débattu en public.
This chapter will attempt to provide a descriptive picture of the position of Turkish media on the Armenian Genocide. No distinction will be made between mainstream and alternative media since categorizing sources in this way does not result in any meaningful outcome with respect to the Armenian issue. Although the distinction is hardly perceptible, it is possible to refer to a mainstream attitude embraced by small and large media. Media in Turkey is politically diversified but in terms of its mindset, an overpowering national and nationalist perspective assimilates state and society as an indivisible unit; this perspective is more or less taken for granted and establishes a pattern of thought and attitude in the sphere of media.
This paper examines forms of nationalism and representations of national identity in Greek-Cypriot media coverage of peace negotiations related to Cyprus – the Eastern Mediterranean island divided ‘ethnically’ between Turkish-Cypriots in the north and Greek-Cypriots in the south since 1974. Building on existing theories of the media’s role in the reproduction of nationalism, this study suggests that media representations of national identity should be addressed in both ‘routine’ and ‘hot’ periods so as to unpack their intersections. Divided Cyprus provides a unique case which furthers our understanding of the media’s role in these processes. Focusing in particular on the Greek-Cypriot media, the paper presents the results of a qualitative study which support the argument that protracted negotiations can be differentiated between routine and crisis media events infused with discourses of nationalism. Specifically, we explore how negotiations function as routine and crisis media events in the ‘everyday’. Second, we examine how televised presidential speeches related to the disputed solution discursively reproduce divided intra-community power relations and how national identities are used to this end. Third, we locate the representational boundaries of the national ‘we’ constructed by the Greek-Cypriot press in a ‘hot’ period - the Annan Period - during which referenda were conducted for the first time on a UN proposed plan subsequently rejected by the majority of Greek-Cypriots and accepted by the majority of Turkish-Cypriots. Through unit and data triangulation, we explore the various ways in which the media engage in the reproduction of national identities and forms of nationalism in the Greek-Cypriot community. We examine the media construction of national identities by critically unpacking hegemonic tropes - in particular the Cyprocentrist-Hellenocentrist antagonism - used to explain Greek-Cypriot identity in Cyprus.
On 17 August 2000, the somber first anniversary of the Marmara earthquake, the mainstream Turkish media found a sole reason for celebration. Alongside lengthy reports of vigils in remembrance of the dead and protests of the state's anemic relief efforts, the media celebrated its partnership with civil society and all but declared an end to a state that was at once heavy-handed and ineffectual. Amplifying this theme, an article that compiled a list of the earthquake's “winners” and “losers” placed the media and civil society in the former category and a host of state agencies charged with disaster response in the latter one.
Hürriyet
, a high-circulation mainstream newspaper, described this praise as well deserved, stating that journalists had effectively “exposed all the naked truths” of the state's inability to provide for its population.
Social scientists and historians usually focus on the impact of politics on ethnicity and nationalism, and their political uses for elites. The impact of ethnicity and nationalism on politics is less commonly treated, because most analysts adhere to an instrumentalist and modernist view of ethnicity and nationalism. We need rather to explore the relationship between culture and politics, and between premodern ethnic ties and modern nations, through an examination of three major trends: the purification of culture through authentication, which can lead to cultural and social exclusion; the universalization of ethnic chosenness through nationalist ideology, which engenders national solidarity and self-assertion; and the territorialization of shared memory, which inspires historical claims to historic homelands and sacred sites. These processes can be found throughout history, but they are particularly marked and widespread in the modern epoch; and they underlie many current political conflicts.